Unsheathing Long Swords

As a little break from our more involved discussions, here's a down-to-earth question that probably has a straightforward answer. How does Severian quickly unsheath his sword when it's slung behind his back? I'm imagining it being long enough that he can't simply reach back and pull it out (his arm not being long enough to get it all the way out of the sheath). And if its length is comparable to the span of Severian's arms, I'm not sure how he gets it out at all. Am I wrongly imagining Terminus Est as much longer than it really is? -Rostrum

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In the bit in COTC where he is captive and riding on the back of the balachutherium he refers to the correct way of drawing the sword being to "grip the quillions in one hand and the throat of he sheath in the other and by opening the arms to left and right to draw the blade clear " - by which I assume he would have had to unsling it first. hartshorn

Does he ever actually "draw it" from that position on his back? (Offhand I don't recall a case, but I could be forgetting something.) My sense of him unsheathing it when it is in front of him is that he is pulling the sheath in the opposite direction as he moves the sword: a two-hand operation, though once it is begun the sheath can be flicked off by swinging the partially sheathed sword. =mantis= Sirius Fiction booklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley Now with UPDATES! http://www.siriusfiction.com/